Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2018 I made a speech in this place regarding the importance of the agriculture sector. It wasn't my first speech on the topic, but it was the first time I spoke about the great disparity of power between the farmers, growers and producers of products and the retailers who sell them. Here we are, six years later, having the same conversation. Of course, the reason why we're having this conversation is that nothing has changed, legislatively, in that time. We still have a duopoly in the food and retail sector. We have duopolies right across all sectors in Australia. With respect to supermarkets, we know that our farmers are the price takers and not the price makers. In my speech I implored members to read Supermarket Monsters, by Malcolm Knox. In the current market this book is even more important than way back in 2018. If you have not read it and you are listening to this speech somewhere in this place, I would say: find the book and read it. I think it's even available at the library.

Around my electorate I've spoken to many primary producers, and the story is always the same: they cannot continue to operate with the high input costs—energy, wages, transport—while receiving bargain basement gate prices. We are sleepwalking into a disaster. Mum-and-dad farmers are exiting the market, particularly in dairy. Mum-and-dad farmers will simply be lost for good. It's heartbreaking to hear comments from them, such as, 'I can't afford to deal with the duopoly and I can't afford not to, either,' and, 'It now costs me more to produce than what I receive, but there's no pricepoint increase.' They are trapped. They have no bargaining power and, without it, no alternative. As I said, they're price takers, not makers.

It's not just the primary producers that are affected by the duopolies. We all are. We're all paying dearly for it. The lack of competition in the retail sector removes the need for innovation, price competitiveness, service and every other aspect associated with true competition. Many of us are just delighted to actually find a checkout server, rather than having to do it ourselves—receiving no 'staff discount' for doing so.

I welcome the government's direction to the ACCC to conduct an inquiry into the Australian supermarket sector, including the price practices of the supermarkets and the relationship between wholesale, including farmgate, and retail prices. However, I'm concerned: we've been down this path before, in 2008, and nothing happened. In part nothing happened because the ACCC found that there was 'little evidence to substantiate allegations of buyer power being exercised in an anticompetitive and unconscionable manner'. But the report did go on to say:

… however, there were some complaints of buyer power being exercised where the complainant appeared to be genuinely reluctant to provide information to the ACCC out of concern about retribution if details were provided to the ACCC and investigated.

This is the crux of the problem. Suppliers are almost solely reliant on selling to one of the two retailers, and they're reluctant to question, challenge or criticise, for fear of retribution or having their line deleted from the shelves. I hope the current inquiry gives sufficient protection and peace of mind to primary producers.

It's time that we joined other countries, like the United States, that have had antitrust laws for a long time. We need to introduce them here to protect consumers and businesses. Antitrust laws are not associated with communist countries, as some in this House have suggested. They are laws that regulate the conduct of business to promote competition and prevent unjustified monopolies and duopolies. The United States is the mecca of capitalism, but it manages improper business conduct through laws such as the Clayton and Sherman acts, which outlaw restraint of trade and attempted monopolisation. If the US can do it, we can do it too. For too long Australia has been the playground of monopolistic and duopolistic enterprises. This has stifled competition, harmed productivity, forced our primary producers to the edge of extinction and contributed to the worst cost-of-living crisis in living memory.

Past actions have not worked. Repeating them is not going to work either. We therefore need to do something differently. We must consider antitrust laws and we must consider them now, because, if we want to still to be drinking milk that's made in Australia and eating food that's made in Australia, we have to do more to support our farmers, and this is the way to do it.